Volleyball: Thomsen named Tribune’s Player of Year

The cruel twist of fate came on Halloween evening, six nights after the Nevada volleyball team suffered as gut-wrenching a loss as you could draw up in high school, a five-set come-from-ahead loss to Bondurant-Farrar in the Class 3A regional semifinals. It had ended the careers of five seniors who formed the core of a team that was favored that night and had aspirations of reaching state.

Now, with Nevada serving as a host school in the Class 1A postseason, nine members of the Cubs came back and donated their time for a regional championship match, working operations and watching as two foes went through the emotions of battling for a state berth. The Cubs believed they should’ve been going through the same process, albeit a night earlier in a different location.

Perhaps it did, but only before a funny thing happened. As Brockway cleared the last of the equipment from the gymnasium after the match, he saw a scene that brought a smile to his face.

“By the time I’ve taken down the net, left the gym, there’s still a handful of them in there playing with the ball,” Brockway said. “I said, ‘Put the ball in the back when you’re done.’ Some are in their socks, some of them are in their shoes. It just doesn’t matter. And that made me feel better maybe more than anything else that happened this whole year, to realize the girls have gotten to a place where they enjoy playing this game.”

***

Pitching in that night was Danielle Thomsen, a senior who was in the middle of everything during a season in which the Cubs went 33-11, won the Heart of Iowa Conference title and garnered a top-10 state ranking.

In a 6-2 system, Thomsen split time as a setter and outside hitter. She finished with team highs of 512 assists and 58 aces, as well as 324 digs, 17 blocks and 78 kills.

She was the only Cub to play in each of the team’s 111 sets this year and, simply put, was the heart and soul of Nevada volleyball. Thomsen embodied the appreciation those impromptu-game-playing Cubs had for the sport, and for her efforts, she’s been named the Tribune’s Player of the Year.

“I love it,” Thomsen said of what the sport has meant to her. “It’s honestly been my life since I was little. It’s a game of emotions and momentum, and it’s a really big team sport. You depend upon your teammates. It can’t just be a ‘you’ thing. I just love it, it’s so much fun.”

Through the years of playing club and high school ball, the 5-foot-8 Thomsen has played about every position on the volleyball floor. Brockway calls her a “good all-around player who just happened to be our setter,” but perhaps she was always meant to be the central figure of Nevada’s offense.

In a position that requires quick decision-making and the ability to juggle the needs and emotions of multiple hitters, the 4.0 student who currently sits academically atop the Nevada senior class seemed wired for the job, which she won as a sophomore.

“It’s totally invaluable,” Brockway said. “You could hardly put a weight to how valuable that is to the team and to the coaching staff, to be able to have a kid you can say something to and they understand it. It’s huge for us.”

Thomsen’s mental and physical skills were especially important for Nevada because Brockway likes his squad to play as fast as possible — in other words, control the ball low and sometimes use a quick “shoot set” so the defense can’t get set up. Many teams strive to do this, but you first must have a good back line serve as a “catalyst,” Brockway said, and then a setter who can execute. Thomsen was a reason the Cubs could play that style the last two years, during which they won 59 matches.

Making Brockway’s job easier, too, was that Thomsen combined her sharp wits with harsh self-critiques. Miss on a serve, a muscle memory motion that you’ve done thousands of times that features no defense at the net? That was unacceptable and sure to needle her into the night.

So would missed sets.

“I’m kind of a perfectionist,” Thomsen said. “If the set is so much as an inch off, it bothers me. I got to get it perfect.”

***

Thomsen hasn’t fully come to terms with the potential end of her volleyball career. Much as those Insanity workouts can wear you out, they just don’t have the same fulfillment as the execution of an artful bump-set-spike with five teammates in motion around you.

To hear her say, “I try not to dwell on that, because it’s really sad, because it’s been such a huge part of my life,” it sounds as if her organized volleyball career is over. Yet Thomsen still leaves the door open a smidge.

She is still mulling over a number of colleges she might like to attend and said she is considering playing volleyball. For his part, Brockway believes Thomsen’s versatility as a setter and defender would allow her to play small-college volleyball, and she said she’d rather not go to a large university.

Thomsen believes her college decision will be based predominantly on academic factors. If volleyball presents itself, so be it. If it doesn’t, so be it.

What she can take comfort in is knowing she and fellow seniors Katie Tyler, Haley Ellingson, Victoria Johnston and Amber Ramthun left their mark on the Nevada volleyball program for the better, and that can’t be taken away.

“I hope they loved watching us, and I hope we inspired (young kids) to come out for volleyball and try as hard as we did and in the end make it farther than we did,” Thomsen said. “Because I want them to be able to experience volleyball and all it has to offer.”

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